Stay

Review: David Sparrow is a stay-at-home dad. His wife, Amy, has just been promoted to be New York City's Deputy District Attorney, and is working on a single case: to send Dante Payne, a leading figure of organized crime in the city, to jail. One night, just after David puts their two kids to bed and is getting ready to hit the sack himself, he hears a noise downstairs; someone has broken in and is searching Amy's home office, in Stay, a novel of suspense by Victor Gischler.

David is not an ordinary stay-at-home dad. A former operations specialist with a covert military organization, he has kept most of his former life private, even from Amy. So he's able to deal with the intruder before he is able to find whatever it was he was looking for and get away. It might have been a random break-in, but David doesn't think so. He's sure it wasn't when, a day later, Amy's sole witness against Dante Payne is killed while entering the courthouse to testify. The District Attorney is also wounded in the attack, leaving Amy in charge of the department … and a case that has completely fallen apart. "With the witness dead, he's off the hook," David thinks. "Maybe he'll forget about us." But even David knows he is kidding himself. That same night two men try to kill David, Amy, and his kids. It just got very personal for him.

Stay is most definitely an exciting thriller. But it's also way, way over the top. It's generally required to suspend disbelief for most books in this genre, and that's certainly the case here. David wounds, maims, or kills dozens of men over the course of the book, with barely a scratch to show for it. He's also not held responsible, or even looked at by the authorities, for all the damage he does and dead bodies he leaves behind. Even so, he's clever, resourceful, and very, very good at dealing with all the criminal elements that cross his path. Minimally plotted, and seemingly written with a future screenplay adaptation in mind, this is a fast-paced, quite entertaining read. Just don't take it too seriously.

Acknowledgment: St. Martin's Press provided a copy of Stay for this review.